


Alter

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Development, Developing Relationship, Domestic, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Reflection, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-13 07:51:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16013546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "The students aren’t the only ones who are changing, and they’re not the only ones Takeda loves to watch over those quick-moving hours of practice." While watching the Karasuno team grow, Takeda finds change in more than just the players.





	Alter

Takeda loves advising the volleyball team. It’s true that he doesn’t know much about volleyball, that he lacks the knowledge or the experience to be a truly excellent advisor or to get the team the kinds of opportunities that more respected schools or better-connected advisors might be able to offer them; but he’s determined, and he’s persistent, and he doesn’t flinch from doing anything and everything he can for the team. He loves it, loves the work and the focus and the effort; most of all he loves being up-close to a team that seems to grow by leaps and bounds every day, as new talents blossom under the application of concerted effort and ever-improving bonds between the players themselves. Takeda finds his breath stolen from him on a daily basis by the advances of the players, by the unveiling of some new ability in one member or another, until he thinks sometimes he’s looking at an entirely different collection of students than those he began with. It’s thrilling to see individuals grow and change so rapidly before his very eyes, until Takeda thinks he would be happy to spend all his time on the court and count it a blessing for himself.

But the students aren’t the only ones who are changing, and they’re not the only ones Takeda loves to watch over those quick-moving hours of practice.

  


Ukai had been irritable the first time Takeda met him. Takeda had brought that on himself, he knows, with his ceaseless string of phone calls and his endless pleas for a moment of Ukai’s time, for an evening spent on a high school volleyball court. Takeda remembers the details with perfect clarity: the growl on Ukai’s voice, the glare in his eyes, the set of the frown at lips so tense they threatened to dislodge the weight of the cigarette against them. Talking to Ukai then had been like talking to a wall, begging for a moment of weakness from someone so dug in to his own routine that he hadn’t even gotten to his feet when Takeda came through the door. Ukai had scowled at Takeda’s pleas, had resisted his attempts at persuasion; it was only in a final, direct appeal to nostalgic competitiveness that Takeda had won even a single night of attention. But Takeda had stood on the edge of that volleyball court, had felt that breathless surge of excitement that seems to bring alive ever fiber in his body at once, and he knew that seeing would be enough to plant a seed.

Ukai hardly ever frowns, now. When he watches the team play it’s with a crease of concentration in his forehead rather than of frustration, and when he calls out suggestions or corrections it’s with the clear, carrying tone of steady encouragement rather than the edge of cynicism. His smiles creep up on him without his noticing, spreading out to easy warmth while he’s looking over the team or considering some new play; and Takeda stands behind him, and watches him sideways, and feels the gratification of well-paid faith in someone else’s potential glow at the inside of his chest.

  


The first week had been a challenge. Takeda had seen it, even if the team hadn’t: for all Ukai’s crisp shouts and natural authority with the players, he had been uncertain in himself, hesitant to step forward in the moments before he actually did so. He had insisted on his inability for the role: he’s not a coach, he’s not a leader, he’s not his grandfather. But when Ukai stepped forward onto the court Takeda saw the heads of the players turn to track him, saw dozens of eyes looking towards him in pursuit of that guidance they are all, including Takeda, in such desperate need of, and he had seen the way Ukai’s shoulders straightened, had heard the way Ukai’s voice deepened. He had listened as the rasp of cigarettes gave way to the rough of shouts loud enough to be heard over the _thud_ and _smack_ of volleyballs hitting smooth-polished floors, had watched as creased-in uncertainty gave way to firm headshakes and approving nods, and he had seen disparate players form themselves into a team, falling into alignment with each other just under the weight of their coach’s attention. It had been clear even before the match with Nekoma, even before Ukai’s growling commitment to stay: Ukai is not his grandfather, but neither is this team his grandfather’s team, and his place is on the sidelines of the matches.

Now: Ukai wears jackets in Karasuno’s colors, and Ukai doesn‘t hesitate over the name he shares with his fabled grandfather on the lapel. Ukai takes his seat on the coach’s bench without hesitation, and he watches the matches Karasuno plays with the steady gaze of a director watching his players perform. He doesn’t flinch when Takeda introduces him to other teams, he turns at once when the players call for “Coach!”; and when his grandfather comes to talk the team through a night of special training, Ukai stands at his side, certain in his role and standing in light he has made himself, free of his grandfather’s noble illumination and shadow alike.

  


There had been a sort of resignation to Ukai, when Takeda first met him. Takeda is hardly one to judge someone else’s life choices, regardless of what path their decisions have led them down, but there was a boredom to Ukai’s tone over the phone, a weight to his gaze when he looked up from the idle indulgence of a well-worn volume of manga and a half-smoked cigarette on the other side of a convenience store counter. His bleached hair and pierced ears stood as the marks of an adopted persona after high school graduation, but his baggy sweater and slow movements spoke of a man comfortable in his own boredom, willing to linger in contentment rather than taking the risk of reaching for anything brighter. Takeda had seen sparks of something else, flashes of vivid focus in the flares of temper he struck with his own irritating persistence, with his unreasonable and unending demands of the complete stranger before him; but Ukai’s flame was a smoulder, a dim glow like that at the end of his cigarette instead of the open fire that Takeda was sure was beneath.

Ukai is different now. He still sports his bleached blond hair, and even if he leaves his earrings out for official matches they still make an appearance at their evening practice at least once a week . But he’s bright, glowing with energy and enthusiasm so overwhelming it’s enough to seize Takeda’s breath in his chest and pull him into shouts of excitement right alongside the other man at every dramatic spike, at every close save. Even when he’s working three jobs at once and sleeping a bare handful of hours his eyes are brighter, his smile is easier, as if he’s channeling the whole range of existence that he was no more than floating atop before. He throws himself into uncertainty, leans into suggestions instead of away from them; and always, everywhere he goes, he glows sun-bright with the same illumination that seems to radiate from the whole of Karasuno.

  


They were strangers when they began. Ukai was no more than a name on a page, more valuable for Takeda’s purposes as the grandson of a great coach than as the man he is himself, than for the skills wholly unique to his own being. Takeda had been startled by Ukai’s bleached hair and clumsy in his persuasion; their interactions were polite, stilted things, bound by bows and apologies and misunderstandings at every turn. Takeda had flinched from the rumble of Ukai’s voice, had lost his own coherency in the rattle of Ukai’s hold shaking his uncomfortably unfamiliar suit; their interactions had been a negotiation, careful and politic and tentative with every offer they made to each other, every leap of intuition Takeda struggled through.

They are not strangers now. Now Keishin’s voice is as familiar to Ittetsu as the resonance of his own, and Ittetsu knows how to tell apart rare frustration from the pleased purr of the teasing that so often marks their interactions. The careful space between them is gone, bridged as easily by a shift of Ittetsu’s hand as by the angle of Keishin’s knee, and there is no flinching back from the brush of skin-to-skin or the intimacy of sideways glances. Ittetsu knows the smell of Keishin’s hair, the shape of his body, the taste of his lips, and when Keishin touches Ittetsu’s clothes now it’s to draw them free with a hold as gentle as the smile at his lips, as warm as the sound of his voice on Ittetsu’s name. They fit together with the grace of long-practiced lovers, share in each other’s lives with the familiar comfort of romance worn soft and easy on comfort, and when Ittetsu looks to find Keishin gazing at him with affection in his eyes he smiles, now, instead of blushing.

  


“Ittetsu.” The voice is low, rough with the weight of sleep and dark with its own usual force; Takeda knows it without turning his head, without needing the tell of the warm arm reaching to fall around his waist to urge his attention down to the weight denting the mattress alongside him. “What are you doing? It must be past midnight.”

“Ah,” Takeda says, blinking as he returns back to himself from the distraction in which he was caught. “Yes. I apologize, was I keeping you awake?”

“Nah.” Ukai’s arm tightens as he curves in to fit himself closer against Takeda’s hip and at the line of his knees, his hold bracing as his body flexes to stretch before he relaxes again. “I fell asleep ages ago. You have to teach in the morning.”

“I know,” Takeda allows. “I was just going to finish this article, first. I thought it would only take a few minutes.”

Ukai lifts his head to squint at the magazine in Takeda’s hands. “That one of the volleyball lineups?” He lets himself fall back to the sheets with a huff of a breath that becomes a laugh in the back of his throat. “You always take hours over those.”

Takeda flickers a smile even though Ukai isn’t looking. “It’s the least I can do,” he says. “Even if I don’t understand the game, I should get as much information as I can for the sake of the team.”

Ukai snorts. “‘Don’t understand the game,’” he repeats. “Sensei, you follow strategy as well as half the team by now.”

Takeda can feel himself flush. “I _am_ seeing it from the sidelines,” he caveats. “I do have an advantage of perspective.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Ukai tells him. “I used to have to explain the rules to you every time someone made a play.” He shifts against the mattress, rolling over onto his stomach so he’s half-atop Takeda’s leg bracing beneath him. “Now you’re explaining techniques to Yachi.” He sighs a breath against Takeda’s hip as he settles back into comfort. “Everyone’s grateful to you for the work you do for them, sensei.”

Takeda presses his lips together. “It’s not much…”

“It’s a lot.” Ukai’s voice doesn’t allow space for Takeda to argue, doesn’t allow for the possibility of another perspective to be held in the world. “Everyone can see it.” The arm around Takeda eases and draws up across his chest to reach for the angle of his elbow; when Ukai’s fingers curl into a hold and urge down Takeda’s arm falls obediently to drop the magazine to his lap.

“You’ve done enough for tonight,” Ukai tells him. “Come to bed, Ittetsu.”

This time a year ago, Takeda would have been up hours into the night, grading assignments or reworking lesson plans that didn’t need his attention just for the sake of something to fill his hours, something to make him feel productive. This time a year ago, there was no one in his bed to urge him to sleep, no one to hold him back from taking his persistence to excess even on his personal pursuits. This time a year ago, he had no volleyball magazines, no weekend commitments, no team looking up to him. This time a year ago, he had no Keishin.

Takeda lets the magazine cover free of his hold, releasing it to fall shut on itself so he can reach out and set it carefully aside. He lays his glasses atop the cover, folded in easy reach so he can find them again in the morning, and when he turns back to bed Ukai lifts his arm to turn off the glow of the light. Takeda fits himself under the covers, and Ukai reaches to drape an arm around him, and Takeda shuts his eyes and smiles into the dark of his bedroom.

He supposes it’s not just Ukai who has changed, after all.


End file.
